I knew one that was pretty good at it, until his cocaine habit started to fuck it up. But he got out of the business with a pretty good stash of money.

We had a guy at work who managed the cash for all the people at work. He’d be out in front about 10:30 in the morning, especially on a Friday in football season, handing off a paper bag.

A woman friend who was big on betting football back in the eighties had a bookie in San Francisco and another in New York. She’d bet to capture the difference between the East Coast spread and the West Coast spread, especially on the 49ers.

She plays cards with her friends, namely poker. You already know the drill.

I’m quite OK with that, but the thing I find irritating is that she’s very poor, yet she still burns her money on the game.

I once tried to talk her out of it, but she just sneered at me, saying I was “an old-fashioned gal who can’t keep up with the time” :/

Oh, and speaking of gambling, there used to be a gambling game called: “What will the weather be”. It was very popular among students. The rule was very simple: basically you put a bet and predict the weather at a chosen period of time, whether it will be sunny or cloudy or rainy or things like that. Extreme gameplay also included predicting the amount of rain (you put a bottle on the street and predict how much rain will pour into the bottle)! I never participated in it, and the game was pretty childish and unnecessarily costly in my opinion. Put money on the weather and lose sleep over it? No way!

A few years ago I placed a bet on a golf tournament, the guy I backed was already well clear of the field after two rounds. I managed, somehow, to take his opening price, around 50/1 & cleaned up on odds I should never have been given.

My only experience with gambling (aside from lottery tickets) was an evening at the local dog-racing track. We paid something like £16 for dinner in the VIP lounge (yes it was a long time ago, it’s a lot more than that now) and I budgeted myself £20 for betting on the races. By the time of the last race I had lost most of it, I still had about £6 left so I put it all on the dog with the name I liked the best, which also happened to be the rank outsider. And it won. My winnings covered the cost of the meal, all my drinks, plus my £20 stakes, and I still came home with an extra £20 in my pocket.

I wouldn’t go back, ever. I have moral concerns about dog racing.

I think the secret of happy gambling is to never bet more than you can afford to lose.

Never. Traditional gambling is not much of an entertainment for me. But I knew a bookie once. Really nice guy who worked as a teller at the local dog track. He was married to a nurse I worked with. I buttonholed him at a party one night because I found his choice of a profession interesting. He said his vig was 100% every seven days. His customer base was a set professional of gamblers who were able to make a modest living off the tracks. He was a little wiry guy, not much meat on him, certainly not imposing. Soft spoken. I asked him what he did when someone didn’t pay up and he said he would simply cut them off for good. Persona non grata. He’d had to do it every once in a while, but they usually paid. He didn’t loan to slugs, just pros. It worked for him until the State made some changes to the game a couple of years ago, changes that made it more difficult to win big, and the pros left town. He’s still a teller there as far as I know.

You’re too soft-hearted for loan shark, @Coloma. A good line, and you’d be, like, “Okay, well, you can have another week, but if I don’t have my money by then, I’m going to shake my finger at you really hard!

The most we ever had at work, @zenvelo was a lottery pool. Then I realized that the chances of the woman managing the pool splitting under $1,000,000 with the other 11 of us was about ZILCH.

@Mimishu1995 A “bookie” is someone that gives odds on things, takes people’s bets, and pays out cash. The person that ran the weather game was the ‘bookie’.

Sweet! @ucme Are you a regular bettor, or was that a fluke. Would make me want to piss the winnings away looking for another score.

I’ve only been to the dog races once, @downtide, and I loved it. Unfortunately, like you, I have concerns. I think if they could guarantee (somewhat) the animal’s welfare, it could be HUGE. Fast paced and entertaining.

Interesting, @Espiritus_Corvus. Sounds like something I might do. Tracking someone down with first-hand information on a subject the interested me. I’m glad he was open with you.